Search For My Tongue

Analysis of Search For My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt

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Feelings

Sadness - Line 15 "I thought I had spit it out"

Confusion - Line 8/9 "You could not use them both together/even if you thought that way"

Anger - Line 1/2 "You ask me what I mean/by saying I have lost my tongue"

Happiness - Line 36-38 "Everytime I think I've forgotten,/I think I've lost the mother tongue,/It blossoms out of my mouth"

Excitement - Line 31 "It grows back, a stump of a shoot"

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Attitudes

Fear she has lost her native language - Line 5 "Lost the first one, the mother tongue"

Knowledge that she can never really lose it - Line 38 "It blossoms out of my mouth"

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Ideas

How you speak says a lot about you

Conflict of culture

No matter what, she will always have Gujerati

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Metaphor

Extended Metaphor

Repetition - "Grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins"

Disturbing & Graphic imagery

Standard English, then Gujerati, then colloquial language.

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Style & Structure

3 sections - 1 in Gujerati

Gujerati rhymes a bit, the others don't

Free verse

Standard English in the 1st section - formal

Last section is more free, loss of anxiety?

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